socialism is at work. There the desire to root out all religion is resolute and active; there we find that many husbands use the power which marriage gives them to destroy faith in their wives; the exceptions are, however, numerous, even in the towns. It is naturally very difficult to arrive at any reliable figures on such a subject; but it seems to result from private observations made by the clergy, and extending over many years, that about one-tenth of the entire population of France goes to Communion at Easter, which is the test of Catholic practice. It seems, furthermore, that, on that occasion, the women are about eight times as numerous as the men. So that, uniting these two calculations, and allowing for the number of young children whose age excludes them from participation in the act, it would appear as if about one-quarter of the women and about one twenty-fifth of the men discharge this obligatory religious duty. But it must be repeated that these averages apply to the nation as a whole; the proportions are of course much higher amongst the educated, and lower still amongst the working classes. These figures show (even if they be only approximately correct) how limited is the influence which the practice of religion is exercising on married life in France; and as the averages are certainly not improving, it may be inferred from them that marriage is not now aiding the progress of religion. The French are growing out of faith, as out of the other convictions which they formerly possessed; and even marriage, with all its subtle means of action, does not appear to be leading them back to it.

If from consideration of the separate phases of the subject we turn back to it as a whole and review its elements in their relation

to each other, we find ourselves in the presence of contradictions which, at first sight, do not seem easy to reconcile, and which might induce us to suppose that the question can only be safely judged in its isolated. elements, and not in its entirety. But, notwithstanding the conflicting nature of the evidence, notwithstanding the hostility of the main facts between themselves, it ought not to be impossible to disentangle the opposing details from each other, and to reach a general impression.

We find that marriages in France are surrounded by peculiar obstacles, both personal and legal; that individual predilections form but a small element in their origin; that antecedent attachments are not considered indispensable; that the precept "increase and multiply" is not admitted as a binding law. So far the system looks unhealthy, according to our appreciation of what marriage should be. On the other hand, we see that the French marry rather more than we do; that, in nineteen cases out of twenty, the love which did not exist beforehand grows up afterwards; that there is little material misery resulting from imprudent marrying; that separations are rare and divorce impossible; that French homes, in almost every rank, are generally attractive models of gentleness and kindness; that, in certain cases, the pursuit of mutual happiness is based on theories and practices in which the highest forms of skill are successfully employed; that children, few though they be, are fondly cherished; that the association between man and wife assumes, in the lower middle classes, an intensity of partnership for which it is not easy to find a parallel elsewhere; that religion, if it does no good to marriage, cannot be said to really suffer harm from it.

In endeavouring to estimate the

real bearings on each other of these two different categories of facts, we may remain convinced that French parents interfere too much in the marrying of their sons and daughters; we may reject as insufficient and illusory, from our point of view, the arguments which they invoke in favour of that intervention; we may point with unanswerable logic to the relatively childless firesides of France as evidence that, whatever be their love for children, the French shrink purposely from having them; but, with all this before us, we are obliged to own that they do extract large results from matrimony. The love of home, which we observe so universally amongst them, is, in itself, a proof of the existence of attraction between man and wife; and attraction implies sympathy. This symptom should suffice alone to remove all reasonable doubt as to the reality of the affection which unites most French families. But if affection is a consequence of marriage, it seems to follow that the system on which marriages are based cannot be a very bad one for those who use it. A somewhat similar argument may be employed with reference to the children; the moral wrong of avoiding them can

not be explained away; but, when they do come, they are tenderly cherished, and aid in strengthening the bond between their parents. If, then, as is incontestably the case, the great majority of French married people love each other and their offspring, it may not unreasonably be deduced therefrom that the difficulties and contradictions which seem at first sight to result from the opposing elements of the position, do not bring about the effects which, with our ideas, we should expect them to produce.

Questions such as these depend a good deal on temperament. The French are not organised as we are ; they differ from us in the composition of their character and their tendencies to a degree which it is scarcely possible to realise without close comparison. The same beginnings do not necessarily result in the same ends in England and in France. As was observed at the commencement of this article, it is fair to judge a system by its fruits; and if we apply that principle to French marriages, we ought to own that a system which leads to so much fondness, to so much happiness, to such true home life, cannot be fundamentally wrong, whatever certain of its details may incline us to suppose.

GUIPUZCOA, one of the three Basque provinces-and the most picturesque of them-consists, with the exception of a few valleys, such as those of Aspeitia, Real de Leniz, Lagaspia, the vega or rich plain lying between Lescano and Beasain, of hills covered with orchards, and of offshoots of the great Pyrenean chain. On the slope of one of these, called Mount Hernio, about half a league from Tolosa, the old capital of the province, and close to the shaded spot where the Oria receives the waters of its little tributary, the Berastegui, stands Hernialde, which, though its population does not exceed 360 souls, claims to rank as a villa, taking precedence of the lugar, and coming immediately after the ciudad or city. With pardonable vanity, it moreover displays on its shield the device, "Noble y leal Villa," which in truth is hardly a distinction, as there are few towns in the Peninsula that do not bear the same designation. The ground slopes down to the Oria, with which the streamlet just mentioned mingles its waters, and is usually clothed with soft and tender verdure, or planted over with fruit-trees and with Indian corn, which constitute the chief agricultural produce of the province. The village church is of the simplest architecture, and is proportioned to the requirements of the population, many of whom, on the great festivals, resort to the more sumptuous structure of Tolosa, remarkable for the colossal statue of its patron, St John.

One morning, in the month of June 1870, the parish priest, a young man of eight-and-twenty, was celebrating mass at the usual hour. The attendants were few, for it was not Sunday nor a holiday of obligation, and the majority of the par

ishioners were employed in the field. The ceremony was more than half over when a party of soldiers, led by an officer, entered the building with fixed bayonets, advanced to the steps of the altar, and there took their stand. When the mass was said and the priest about to retire, the officer announced in a loud voice that he was his prisoner, and ordered him "in the name of the law" to follow him there and then. The priest, thus rudely interrupted, manifested no surprise or irritation; he merely requested to be allowed time to lay aside his vestments. The party followed him to the sacristy, where he disrobed. "Am I really to consider myself your prisoner?" he asked, looking fixedly, but with no indication of alarm, at the officer; "and if so, may I ask what offence I am charged with? It must, indeed, be serious, to justify your intrusion into this place, and to arrest a minister of religion at the foot of the altar, and in the act of performing his sacred functions. Of course I must submit

but, once more, what is my of fence?" "Of that you shall hear," said the officer, "in the proper place, and from competent authority; my duty is simply to execute the orders of my superiors, before whom you will soon appear, and who will, doubtless, give all the explanation you desire." "Very good, sir," said the priest, in a gentle and resigned. tone; "but I have not yet broken my fast. It wants but half an hour to noon. I have been up since daybreak, and on foot, attending to the wants of my people; and I presume, and hope, that your orders do not compel you to take me to prison half famished. My house is but a few steps off, and I shall be satisfied if you give me a few minutes

to swallow a cup of chocolate." "Certainly," answered the officer, a young man of about five-and-twenty, and of courteous manner. The guard followed him, and drew up at the door. "I shall detain you but a very short time. You will do me a favour by coming up-stairs to my room, and share my refreshments." "Many thanks; but we remain here." The priest appeared so quiet in tone and manner, so utterly unconscious of having done anything to merit harsh treatment, that the of ficer, and probably his men, thought that, towards a person so inoffensive and so zealous, it was an act of wanton tyranny. This favourable opinion was strengthened when a young man, the sacristan of the parish, brought out on a small tray six or seven cups of thick chocolate, with the indispensable glasses of sparkling cold water, azucarillas, and cigarettes. Twenty minutes, half an hour soon passed by; three-quarters; and the officer was growing impatient. He was about to summon his prisoner to descend, and had mounted a few steps, when he was met by a peasant on the staircase, bearing on his head a large basket of apples and maize-stalks, who stepped aside respectfully to make way for him. Ten minutes more elapsed, and the officer called out to the priest to come down. There was no answer. He called still louder; still no answer. Не made a sign to two of his men to follow. They ascended the creaking staircase, and entered the little room where the prisoner was supposed to be taking his repast. On a small round table there was indeed a cup of chocolate, flanked by a bit of dry toast and a glass of water, but no one was there. The officer darted into the next room ;-it was empty. He searched every hole and corner of the house-which was a small one-but in yain. The windows were shut, and there was no sign on

the balcony of any person passing that way. The officer came to the conclusion that the peasant with the fruit-basket, who had made way for him on the staircase, and the priest, were one and the same. The peasant was he whose name is now so well known in the north of Spain, among the foremost and most daring of the Carlist chiefs, MANUEL SANTA CRUZ, Curé of Hernialde.

Santa Cruz was born in 1842 in Elduayen, a village of Guipuzcoa not much more populous than that of which he was parish priest. It is four miles from Tolosa, and half that distance from the Navarrese border. Like Gil Blas, he was indebted to his uncle, an ecclesiastic, for the rudiments of Latin; and as he evinced a vocation for the Church, he was placed in a seminary at Bergara, and, by the generosity of the same relation, was enabled to complete his studies. He received orders at the usual canonical age. He said his first mass in 1866, and two years afterwards was appointed Curé of the parish of Hernialde. By those who knew him while a student, he is said to have been quiet and unassuming, of blameless life, and even austere in morals, fanatic, if you will, in what he believed to be the cause of religion and the cause of legitimacy, but sincere and disinterested. Next in love for the Prince whom he regards as the true heir to the crown of Spain, is his admiration of Zumalacarreguy, the famous champion of the Carlists in the former war, and who, like himself, was a native of Guipuzcoa. The companions of his school-days tell how he used to pore over the story of the combats and the triumphs of the man whom he looked on as a hero; and how his pale features flushed and his eyes glowed when he read of "Judas," as he called Maroto, betraying the king to whom he had sworn fidelity, and the army

a

who implicitly trusted him, in Bergara. But in all probability, were it not for the events which followed the downfall of Isabella II., Santa Cruz would have lived and died the pastor of his village, devoting himself to study and the performance of his priestly duties.

In the early part of 1870 he was informed that a rising was imminent in the north-west, in favour of the grandson of the Don Carlos about whom he had read so much in the history of the seven years' war. It did not occur to him that there was anything irregular in an ecclesiastic taking active part with arms in the field, in defence of religion, and of legitimate monarchy against the enemies of both. He was conversant with the history of the priests and monks, and even nuns, who roused the enthusiasm of the Spanish people against the French invaders in the war of independence, and who led the guerillas against the foreign traitors and rebels who had murdered their king;-of the friars of Saragossa, whose memory is preserved in poetry and painting, who braved the terrors of the battlefield, and, indifferent to danger and to death, with the crucifix in their hand, pointed the cannon against the enemies of mankind. There was, too, the famous Curé Merino, who, after figuring in that war of giants, reappeared, after years of retirement, at the head of his free companions, and long roamed over the plains of Old Castile. Zumalacarreguy himself had renounced the clerical profession, for which he was originally intended, to combat the French, as he many years after combated for the legitimate king; and, more than all, was not the Bishop of Leon foremost among the most daring partisans of Charles

V.?

I have observed that, but for the military insurrection of 1868,-an

insurrection plotted and carried out by men noted for the blackest ingratitude that our times have witnessed, some of whom retributive justice has already overtaken,-the name of the priest of Hernialde would not have been known beyond the precincts of his native province. In 1870 a first attempt was made in favour of Don Carlos, and failed, owing, according to his friends, to the treachery of one or two of the chiefs, but also, doubtless, to the imperfect preparations for the campaign, and the scanty armament. There were men enough, at all events, for an opening-probably 6000-but arms and ammunition were wanting; and when the combat of Orosquieta ended in the defeat of the insurgents, there were 2000 more ready to take part in it, but they had not a single musket among them. It had been settled after long deliberation in Paris (Rue Chauveau-Lagarde) and in Geneva, that the proclamation of Don Carlos as King of Spain should be made simultaneously in the four northern provinces, Navarre, Guipuzcoa, Biscay, and Alava, in each of which depots of arms were established. It happened that a couple of hundred stand of muskets, of the old pattern the greater part, were hid in the village of Hernialde: one of the chiefs informed his old schoolfellow and friend, Santa Cruz, of the fact, and requested him to watch as diligently as possible over their safe keeping. The spot where they were concealed and the person in charge of them were soon denounced to the Alcalde of the village, the informer being, as was alleged, the young woman who was not long afterwards shot by the Curé. Orders were given for his immediate arrest, and a party of soldiers with an officer despatched to execute them. How he succeeded in escaping from them has just been mentioned.

For the next twelve months and